EXCLUSIVE | People hardly back independent artists in India: Armaan Malik

He further said that while in the west, there’s an effort to create artists, there’s hardly anything done here to take a musician from scratch and make him or her a big name of the industry.

“People don’t believe musicians can be stars. That’s the thought that restricts all of us to become big. Non-film music is a great way to branch out as an artist. But very rarely people invest in non-film music. Money in India all goes to making films so, people rarely back an artist who wants to do non-film music,” Armaan said.

“Creating an artist is a very different thing. There (in the west), people create artists from zero to 100. Here, people just give songs to artists, saying, ‘You have to sing this.’ So, no one is creating our curating an artist.”

While labels and producers are to be blamed for the disparity between the stardom that Indian actors and musicians enjoy, Armaan said music artists should also be persistent about creating their individual identity, one that’s independent of the film songs they record.

“Personally, I also believe that an artist needs to decide what he or she wants to do. Like I do so many covers. I have done non-film music and even featured in those videos. So, these things help create your separate identity. My fans also like me for my independent music.”

“So, this identity grows when more stars emerge from India. My dream is to be one of them and say, ‘The only stars in India are not just actors, but also singers’,” he said.

This talk of film versus non-film music has been going on for decades, especially since the late ’90s, which saw an upsurge in the number of music bands and independent singers-musicians. While that trend slowly died by mid-2000s, an insurgence in independent artists, fuelled by redundancy in film music, has renewed the debate.

Many leading musicians in the country, who make sure they make something of their own besides the hit film score they create every month, have gone on record saying making independent music is far more satisfying than composing for movies.

When asked how he perceives the two platforms, Armaan said while the singles he record allow him to play around with the music, crooning film songs means he has to cater to the tastes of a lot of people, including the film’s producers, particularly big names, which can get tiresome at times.

“As singers, we have more creative liberty when we make our singles, it’s there in film music also but there you have to tune it according to other people’s tastes and film scripts. In Bollywood, you need to know that you are catering to different people and their tastes.”

On being asked if it can get frustrating to have a producer tell him how to sing a number for it suits the feel of the scene, the young singer replied, “But ultimately it’s their product. It’s very important you know that. Of course, it’s your song but it’s also theirs. I know sometimes it can happen that a producer tells you something that’s not justified and then you have a creative difference. Then you have discussions.”

Armaan admitted he has had such encounters where he had to seemingly bowed down to pressure from huge names from the industry but he has learnt the smart way of dealing with the situations.

“Yes, sometimes it could happen. When you work with big people, you have to bring your A game and yet add a little bit of what they want. It happens in every industry. In my case, if I have to take something (input) from them (producers), I twist it in my own way.”